Surgical Microbot Developed

An anonymous reader writes to mention a Wired article about the first surgical nanobot developed for practical use. No wider that two human hairs, the machine is intended to swim through arteries and the digestive tract, and can perform surgical procedures in spaces no bigger than 250 microns. The article also addresses safety concerns; the bot will swim upstream from blood flow, so if something goes wrong it can be retrieved on its way back. Likewise, for the most delicate procedures it can be fitted with a tether, to ensure it doesn't get lost. From the article: "The tiny robot, small enough to pass through the heart and other organs, will be inserted using a syringe. Guided by remote control, it will swim to a site within the body to perform a series of tasks, then return to the point of entry where it can be extracted, again by syringe. For example, the microrobot might deliver a payload of expandable glue to the site of a damaged cranial artery -- a procedure typically fraught with risk because posterior human brain arteries lay behind a complicated set of bends at the base of the skull beyond the reach of all but the most flexible catheters."

welcome

[by Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our surgical microbot overlords.

great. . .

[AcidLacedPenguiN (835552)]

. . .so now they're going to take over my body from within?

Re:

[TheMadcapZ (868196)]

The bad part of this robot is if the tether snaps, or loses power and ends up in the brain. Stroke and lawsuit city!!!!

Re:great. . .

[jdray (645332)]

I was wondering about that myself. Any ideas on how to guard against that?

Realistically, any sort of circulatory system surgery has the potential to knock loose a piece of plaque that can end up in your brain, and this beats the heck out of having a medical snake run up one of your arteries (a friend of mine had heart surgery; they went in through her thigh in a one-inch incision).

Also, on a tether, you could feed the thing power so it could do longer, more complex surgeries.

Re:great. . .

[Daemonstar (84116)]

Ya, possibly, but there's no more risk than having your body cut open and worked on by people. Surgery is surgery. :)

Re:

[Thansal (999464)]

The bad part of this robot is if the tether snaps, or loses power and ends up in the brain. Stroke and lawsuit city!!!!

the bot will swim upstream from blood flow, so if something goes wrong it can be retrieved on its way back

I tihnk the idea is that if somethign does fug up it simply will wash back to the point of origin because it will flow WITH the blood. Think of putting a motor boat in a swiftly flowing river, have it putter up stream, then cut the engines and watch as it comes back.

Re:great. . .

[TheMeuge (645043)]

I do have medical training, so let me explain:

The blood-brain barrier has to do with the tighter junctions between the cells that form blood vessel walls, which prevents diffusion of most larger molecules into the brain, and prevents migration of cells into the brain. This is how the brain becomes an immunologically-priviledged site.

The blood-brain barrier does not affect the LUMEN of the blood vessels - only their LINING. Thus, it does not have any role in filtering particles within the bloodstream itself. So it cannot prevent an object from being stuck in a small artery or arteriole, obstructing blood flow and causing a stroke.

This'll be a Fantastic Voyage for medical science

[Rob T Firefly (844560)]

Just keep Donald Pleasence away from the controls.

While this is super mega-awesome

[TinBromide (921574)]

Isn't this too big to be a nanobot?

Anywho, i wonder if they'll hook this sucker up to a joystick for real time control, anyone played ballistics? Like that only instead of breaking the speed of sound, you try not to cripple someone for life, for real!!!

I give it 2 thumbs up... 2 thumbs... well, one thumb and a hand twich...

Summary wrong

[SNR monkey (1021747)]

Can you really call something a nanobot if it is 250 microns wide? Seems like this 'nanobot' is a few orders of magnitude too large(Wikipedia says nanobots [wikipedia.org] are typically devices ranging in size from 0.1-10 micrometres).

some perl

[Trailer Trash (60756)]

use Jokes::Std::Beowulf;
use Jokes::Std::Overlords::Robotic;

That's optimism!

[Lazerf4rt (969888)]

The article:

An international team of scientists is developing what they say will be the world's first microrobot... While others have tried and failed to create microrobots for arterial travel, Friend believes his team will succeed...

The Slashdot headline:

Surgical Microbot Developed.

Re:That's optimism!

[niconorsk (787297)]

You mean Slashdot articles are sometimes inaccurate and sensationalist. Quickly, inject me with some nanobots to calm my central nervous system before I go into paralyzing shock.

Re:

[Lazerf4rt (969888)]

Sorry, I'm still new here.

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[Mr2cents (323101)]

If it would have existed, that would be amazing.. How on earth are they going to power the thing? It's nice to make it small, but to let it swim up against the bloodstream I don't think a 'nanobattery' will do. And then we're not yet talking about transmitting images!

I'd love to be proven wrong, but my engineering gut feeling tells me it cannot be done.

Re:

[oliverthered (187439)]

Is it me of have /. headlines been getting very dubious lately. Just take 'Bill to Treat Bloggers as Lobbyists Defeated' as an example of a dubious headline for today (there have been many more this week).

Old news

[UbuntuDupe (970646)]

Nanomachines have already been used to perform surgery. For example, Dr. Victor Niguel developed them to attack the Pempti strain in 2018.

The new bit

[Silver Sloth (770927)]

Once you separate the wheat from the chaff in TFA the new tech is

The microrobot's design is based on the E. coli bacterium, complete with flagella that will propel it through the body. Scientists will make the flagella out of human hair in the preliminary research stages, and eventually they want to try using Kevlar.

The theory behind the microrobot's propulsion system is modeled after turbine and helicopter blades, Friend said.

"In and of itself, the idea is not especially new, but it has always fallen down around the propulsion system," he said.

So, at the end of the day, what we have is another step towards a working microbot, not the finished product.

It's one of those things...

[GoatMonkey2112 (875417)]

...that you think will never actually happen, but it does. While the ones that seem possible don't (flying cars, etc.).

Neuroendovascular surgery

[daigu (111684)]

For example, the microrobot might deliver a payload of expandable glue to the site of a damaged cranial artery -- a procedure typically fraught with risk because posterior human brain arteries lay behind a complicated set of bends at the base of the skull beyond the reach of all but the most flexible catheters.

Getting beyond the "bends at the base of the skull" through the arteries is a surgical field called Neuroendovascular Surgery that has been in development since the 1960s [ajnr.org] and is used on everyone from babies [post-gazette.com] to the old to people with cocaine habits and so forth. If I had an illiness that required it, I'd take a surgeon who performs several hundred of these operations a year over a remote controlled robot.

Re:Neuroendovascular surgery

[gbjbaanb (229885)]

However, once the robot is proven, the surgeon who *used* to perform hundreds of these operations, now performs twice as many but uses a fancy remote controller instead of his old wiggly catheter.

Once upon a time, these operations would be performed using a bit of sharp flint after a song and dance round the fire while stoned out of your head on mushroom juice. Things move on, don't worry about them.

Science Fiction continues to amaze me

[zappepcs (820751)]

Here is yet another science fiction creation that is on its way to being real. In another couple of years, reading science fiction (on a flexible screen PDA) will be the guide for how stock traders invest.

Fantastic Voyage!

[your_mother_sews_soc (528221)]

Thirty years or so ago I loved the idea of having Raquel Welch swimming around in my body. Have you seen her lately? She's probably the reason I need my arteries un-clogged in the first place.

Re:

[dpilot (134227)]

No, I haven't seen here lately. Do you realize that most /.ers are probably to young to even know who she is, let alone remember her?

Re:

[Cheetahfeathers (93473)]

Yes, but not yet. You have to wait for them to be invented first. Unless you're a slashdot editor.